Cyborg Heart

by Anna Lewis

  However, then she found herself with another problem. How the hell was she going to approach these people? How would she connect with another human when she hadn’t done in forever? She hadn’t contemplated just how difficult this was going to be…

  When she really thought about it, even before Wade and B, the only person that she had ever befriended when she was a very young child, Bonnie, was also one of the Ec’dua race – she had never actually been friends with a human person, and that was a thought that had only just hit her.

  “On my God Talia,” a voice suddenly called out, causing her to spin around in shock, shaking her from her intense, overwhelming fears. “Is that you?”

  “Ye… yes…” she stammered, looking at a face that was oddly familiar to her, but one that had been locked away in the back of her mind for a very long time. Was it who she thought it was? Or was she going insane, hoping for things that weren’t actually possible? Her mind certainly had been under a lot of stress recently, she supposed that it wasn’t too hard as stretch to imagine. “D… dad? Is that you?”

  She couldn’t believe it. Was this real or was she somehow still dreaming? It didn’t seem to make any sense whatsoever! Her mind freaked and her body trembled, but the more she looked this man up and down, the more obvious it became that he looked a little like her. He had dark hair like hers, and the same piercing eyes. There was no denying that they were related. There was no denying that this was the man that she’d last seen many years ago, that day as she got dressed for school, the day that she had kissed him goodbye having no idea that everything was about to change. She thought back to that moment, remembering how bittersweet that had been, and it made her emotions flutter around her body like crazy.

  She had never expected to see him again, and now that he stood before her, she just didn’t know what to do or say.

  He enveloped her in a deep hug, making her feel incredibly uncomfortable. He might have been her father, but in her mind he’d been dead for a very long time. She had no idea who this man even was really, and he was treating her like a daughter… it was too weird for words. She went home at six years old after an attack on the school, to find her mother dead and him gone… that was just how it was, and she had accepted that. She wondered where he had gone, or if he would come back for her, but when he didn’t, she decided that he must be dead. She had done her best to not think of it again… she’d had more important things to worry about.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” he gasped into her shoulder, shaking as he was clearly crying. “I have been looking for you this whole time, imagining what you would look like, and you’re exactly what I thought.”

  “What… I don’t know…” Talia didn’t even know how to process that, never mind speak. “I don’t…”

  “When the attack started, I ran away,” he admitted, pulling back to look at her, spilling out things that he’d obviously been holding in for a very long time. “I watched you mother get killed by the aliens, and I heard about an attack on the school, and I just assumed that there would be no hope.” A tear splashed down his cheek, that made no sense to Talia… her brain was simply everywhere all at once. She couldn’t quite understand anything. “But I was wrong. I went back to find you a few days later and bodies littered everywhere… but not yours.”

  This was clearly a memory that haunted him, it was evident in his eyes. But all Talia could think about was her own experience. She was only a young child who had been left with nothing and no one. He had left her alone, and now that she discovered him living, there was some definite resentment there. She had been forced to fend for herself, to feed herself, to look after herself when she was barely able to even think for herself. She had been much too young for that.

  It was too much for anyone to have to deal with, and all of that was floating to the surface now that she found herself faced with the one person who should have been there to defend her. It hurt, it really cut her deep, and her body was shaking just attempting to process it all.

  She had always considered herself a badass, but now she could see that she’d just defended herself because she’d really needed to, because she had no one else. She’d been forced to become that person, which was actually really sad.

  “Dad, this is too much,” she told him, pulling away, needing her own personal space for a moment. “I can really only deal with one thing at once, and we have this war to deal with right now. I appreciate that you’re here, and that you’re… you’re saying all these things, but… I just don’t know…”

  She glanced over to where the aliens were now gathering together, waiting for the fight that had somehow been agreed. Seeing the Ec’dua all in their natural form made a weird sensation flood Talia. B was over there, somewhere. He had to be, and she didn’t know where. That was terrifying… how the hell was she going to know whether or not he’d got hurt? How could she keep an eye on him, when she couldn’t tell which one was him?

  This was going to be challenging enough, she really didn’t need her long-lost father showing up on top of it, playing havoc with her already tender emotions. Her brain might just explode under the pressure of it. Dealing with her dad was going to have to wait.

  “I’ll… I’ll talk to you afterwards, okay?” She pushed her dad away, and tried to get her feelings in check. She didn’t want to come across like she was callous and uninterested, but it was what she had to do to get through this day. She didn’t really want to die on this battlefield, she wanted to be able to come out of it on the other side, and she needed to do what she needed to do. “I’ll just find you later.”

  She sucked in a few deep breaths, trying to calm down her panic, trying to narrow down her focus, but it didn’t feel like anything was really working. She moved away, to be by herself, ignoring the evident pain in her dad’s eyes, and tried to prepare herself for the impossible, even though she couldn’t.

  And then the fighting began.

  ***

  As the aliens started their attack, it instantly became an unfair and terrifying fight. In the way that it had always been, in hand-to-hand combat, the humans were leaps and bounds above the aliens, but the Ec’dua had the better technology which was killing people before they could get too close. The aliens had the advantage.

  Talia couldn’t cope with any of it. She couldn’t fight because she didn’t know where B was, but she couldn’t hide either. She started to realize that she probably should have just stayed away – that would have been the best option for everyone. She tried to get involved, she kept trying to dip in and out of the fight, but a cold fear gripped on to her heart and it was rendering her limbs stuck in one place. She couldn’t get her head around anything and that was making her more of a liability than anything else. She was useless, and even worse than that, she was pathetic.

  Realizing that, she pushed herself to the back of the field, trying to sort out her thoughts, while combat burst around her. She needed to calm her thoughts down, to start making some smart decisions, and while she remained in the middle of the activity in such a state, she threatened others as well as herself. Everything seemed to be happening so fast that she could barely focus on anything… it was all too much.

  A tight knot of panic began to fill her up, which she couldn’t control however much she tried. Her chest became painful and her limbs started to tingle in a way that she’d never experienced before. Her body was freaking out, reflecting her overwhelming emotional state, and she didn’t know what to do… so she did the only thing she could and she curled herself up into a ball, falling to the ground with a thump, allowing everything to fade in and out around her…

  ***

  Talia was breathing deeply, trying to control herself, but she wasn’t doing much good for herself. She’d never experienced a panic attack before, and she was quickly realizing that she didn’t like it one bit. She wanted to do her bit in the war, and she also wanted to be able to protect the people she loved, but she was being useless, and however much she tried to
stop it, she couldn’t seem to do so.

  That was until a familiar set of arms wrapped round her, giving her the comfort that she so desperately needed. She instantly knew that it was him without even having to turn around, he had that presence that she immediately just knew, and that relief helped her to finally get a grip of herself. She could do anything with him by her side, and that was exactly what she needed.

  “Wade?” she gasped into his chest as her pulse rate calmed. “What’s going on?” She knew that it was probably the wrong thing to do, but she allowed him to take her in his arms, as the crazy fighting went on around them both. “Why are you in your human form?”

  “I’m fighting for the humans,” he reminded her. “I need them to know that I’m on their side. I don’t want there to be any mistakes. We’re here now, we’ve arrived a little late to allow ourselves to mix in without easily being detected, but things will turn around now. Your side will win.”

  “I… I don’t know what to do,” she admitted sadly to him, gripping on to him as if he was the only person alive. “I can’t cope, I can’t seem to do anything. I want to help too, I want to fight, but I can’t seem to make myself do anything.”

  “You don’t have to,” he told her kindly, holding her tighter to his chest. “You don’t know which one is B out there. It’s understandable that you can’t do it. Don’t stress yourself out too much. I know that you don’t want him hurt – I don’t either, but it’s easier for me because I can sense his mind.” He lay her down, hidden behind a bush, and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “We both need you to be safe, and to get through it alive. To be honest, it will make us all feel better if you are out of the way. B and I both wish that you weren’t even on the battle field, and I’m glad that you’re here, where I can keep an eye on you, rather than out there where anything could happen to you.”

  Talia allowed her eyes to flicker over the field, seeing people falling, wounded or killed, left, right, and center, the panic inside of her growing with every passing second. It was carnage, absolutely horrible, and she wanted to turn herself inside out and throw up.

  When had she become so useless, weak and emotional? When had she changed from being a badass? How could she get that version of her back? She could have really used that version of herself right now, but it had just vanished without a trace.

  Her breaths became labored all over again, as she realized that there was really no hope in her getting out there and doing anything positive. She hadn’t come here to wuss out and to hide in the corner, but if she stepped out onto that field in this state, she would end up dead. The people that were fighting were dropping like flies, and she couldn’t do a damn thing. She would be nothing more than a quick kill, and that would distract B and Wade – and she didn’t want them to end up dead because of her. That was the last thing that she’d ever wanted.

  She opened her mouth, wanting to answer Wade, to get some reassurance, but before she could she noticed a man walking right into danger. He stepped forward, as if he couldn’t even see what was going on around him, and although everything seemed to slow down in Talia’s eyes, it didn’t stop him from getting hurt.

  “Dad, no!” Talia screamed, forgetting everything else. An intense power overcame her and she managed somehow to jump upwards. A strength had burst forth from within her, and she was using that to try and save the man that she didn’t really know, but who did seem hazily familiar as the only family she had left. She raced out onto the field, needing to get to him, pushing all of the resentment and doubt out of her mind once and for all.

  ***

  The man might not have been around for any of her life, and she might have just brushed him off, but he was her dad and she didn’t want him to die. Some kind of protective instinct kicked in.

  She’d wanted some more time to process the fact that he was alive. She didn’t want to lose him forever – she really needed answers, a family bond, that parental figure that had never been there, and there was no chance in hell that she was going to get that if he was dead. That was all that she could think about as she pumped her body along to field as quickly as she could manage.

  As soon as she reached her father, she shoved into him and knocked him to the ground, away from the ray gun that was aiming at his head. She flung herself on top of him, trying to keep him out of harm’s way, but she braced herself too, expecting the worst. She kept her hands over her head and her body tensed, but she quickly realized that nothing was heading toward her.

  “Dad?” she whispered to him as soon as she realized that the alien had already forgotten about them and moved on to someone else. “Dad are you okay?”

  She moved herself off of him, but kept her body low on the ground to try and keep out of the way, and she spun her dad over to face her. She gasped in happiness as she saw his life-filled face, but then her eyes scanned down his body and she noticed something sticking out of it. Something that had the word danger screaming inside of her. She couldn’t quite process exactly what was happening, but she knew that it was bad, and that was all she could focus on.

  “What… what’s this?” she panted, touching the item gently. “What’s going on?” She felt like she was in a nightmare, one that she could never wake up from.

  “It’s killing me,” her dad spat out, the life already starting to drain from his face. He was growing pale, thinner, and sickly looking, and that made her feel ill. She had just gotten him back, she had just got the opportunity to find out more about herself, but now was being stripped away from her… and it was from the enemy that she was already having mixed feelings about. “I… I’m sorry,” he reached up and tried to touch her face, but he was already too weak to do so. “I’m sorry. I’m leaving you again, abandoning you when you need me the most.”

  His words struck a chord with her, somewhere deep inside. They sounded so genuine, so hurt, and all of a sudden she wanted to comfort him on his last few minutes on Earth. Nothing else mattered, only that, and that was what she intended to do.

  She leant her face down into his hands, and started talking. “I love you Dad, but don’t worry. I’m okay. I can do this alone.” Tears filled her eyes and started to splash onto his cheeks while he listened intently to her. “I know that you didn’t mean to leave me on my own before, I’m aware that it wasn’t what you wanted, but it happened, and that’s okay. I grew strong,” she was starting to sob, but she didn’t let that stop her. “I grew up, and now I’m okay. I’m going to get through this, I’m going to help the world become good again – I’m going to make Mom and you proud.”

  “We are proud,” her dad whispered, using his last breaths to help her. “You are amazing, and you have done amazing things. I love you, my Talia.”

  Talia held him tight, refusing to let him go, staring deep into his eyes while his life ebbed away and she realized that she didn’t need answers, she didn’t need closure, she didn’t need that bond. She knew that she was loved and that would have to be enough for her. She would get by on that, because she knew that she had to.

  “I love you,” she whispered, as she finally dropped his lifeless hand. “I love you, and I’ll do this for you.”

  With that, her grief bubbled into a red hot rage, and she went after the alien that she’d seen attacking her dad in a frenzy. It was dangerous to do so, but at that moment, she did not care about danger.

  A red mist had descended over her eyes and there was no stopping that – not even at one point when she spotted Wade being taken on by some of his own kind. She did turn to help him, to race after him and at least attempt to save him, but another Ec’dua got in her way, and unfortunately she got distracted by that fight.

  She carried on fighting with all her might, punching, kicking, attacking anyone that got in her way, and that was how she continued until she began to notice that the fighting was ceasing around her. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d missed, but when her brain finally switched on enough to pay attention, she realized that the numbers of Ec�
�dua had depleted, and that the ones that were still standing seemed mostly to be rebel fighters, in Wade’s faction.

  She broke off panting, glancing around, trying to figure out what had happened, but it seemed like everyone was done. That was the moment that she finally allowed the emotion to get to her, and everything that had just happened all came to a head in her mind, and she collapsed on the ground in a heap, sobbing profusely.

  Why had she lost her dad?

  Why did she leave Wade when he so clearly needed her?

  What had happened to B? Was he still alive?

  She knew that she needed to stand up, to try and tackle at least some of those questions, but she was much too emotional to really consider that for the time being…

  ***

  As everyone around he began to gather up their belongings and finally put an end to the war, Talia burst out into a panic. She didn’t care about the carnage that had been left behind, and she wasn’t interested in the terms of the peace treaty that were being discussed. All she wanted to do was to locate B and Wade.

  She wanted to know exactly where they were, if they were hurt or not, and what she could do to help them. Those thoughts consumed her mind almost entirely and that was all she could think about. She had already lost one really important person to her. She couldn’t lose anyone else. She didn’t know how she would even begin to survive if she did.

  She even got to the point where she didn’t care what anyone else thought, and she started shouting their names aloud.

  “B?” she yelled, thinking of all the purple shapes blurring past her. “Wade?”

  She recalled his face as he was being hurt, and she suddenly realized that she had no idea how bad that was. At the time, she’d been too consumed by her anger about losing her dad, but now it was really hitting her.